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"Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright"- Morgan Freeman, Shawshank Redemption. This blog is from one such bird who couldn't be caged by organizations who mandate scripted software testing. Pradeep Soundararajan welcomes you to this blog and wishes you a good time here and even otherwise.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I toured Singapore for about 10 days this month. I don't know why my eyes kept catching signboards that suggested people to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle plastics. I think it was because I am from India.

As a part of my tour, I had been to a Zoo and there, I heard the animal show host explaining the need to reduce, reuse and recycle as it impacts the environment and animals.

I felt great about Singaporeans, for stressing the point in many places. No wonder their country ( most parts ) is so clean and tidy that I felt I am in a foreign land. I thought for a while that people in India don't talk about Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as much as Singaporeans do.

16 days after the tour ended, I realized I was wrong. People in India talk as much as Singaporeans do about reducing, reusing and recycling. Here is how they ask:

How can I reduce testing and thereby decrease the cost of the project and increase my profitability?

If testing is a job of providing quality related information to the stake holders to help them take better informed what could reducing testing mean?

I think the people who talk about reducing testing to decrease costs want to know if there is

a way (or more than one) to make testers more efficient, skilled and competent.

a way (or more than one) to get information more faster.

a way (or more than one) to know if they can save costs by not purchasing unnecessary tools.

a way (or more than one) to know if they can avoid hiring bad candidates.

a way (or more than one) to know if they could spend less on managing attrition.

a way (or more than one) to know if they are not doing things that would not add value.

a way (or more than one) to know if they are meeting the mission.

a way (or more than one) to know if they can fall into fewer traps.

a way (or more than one) to know if they can recover much faster from the traps.

a way (or more than one) to know if they can be more successful in getting more projects.

and : How can I reuse and recycle my test cases, test scripts and testers for future projects thereby reducing the cost of my future projects to increase my profitability?

I think people who talk about reusing / recycling test cases, scripts and testers for future projects want to know:

many ways (or at least one) to know if they can cut costs by not needing to train testers on a similar domain, technology or product.

many ways (or at least one) to know if they can cut costs by not having to spend time on writing test cases and test scripts for a new project by modifying existing test cases and test scripts.

many ways (or at least one) to know if they can cut costs by not having to write code that tests code by modifying existing code.

many ways (or at least one) to know if they can cut costs by not needing to spend much of a time on learning the new product and finding bugs faster.

many ways (or at least one) to know if by thinking of reusing and recycling, they are definitely saving costs without sacrificing the value they want to add.

Well, if all those who ask the questions knew how to ask it more elaborate or deeper questions, we'd be living in a different world. Thankfully, we still are in the same world.

How did I reuse, recycle and reduce?

I don't recommend writing test cases and executing tests with the help of that. Although I am not someone who'd like looking at test cases, there was a context in which I looked in to test case document that someone else had written, to gather ideas for my exploratory testing. That's how I reused a test case. It definitely reduced the cost because I took help of an already existing database of ideas. ( That doesn't mean test cases can be handy for ideas to test. A check list, cheat sheet, mnemonics, heuristics... might do it as well more cost effectively).

In one of the several product development organizations I worked for, I identified that a tester was not performing fair enough. I probed for his history of performance within the organization in past projects and recommended him to be fired ( of course, I had the authority to recommend ) He was being paid a lot for he had over 7 years experience. The management feared firing him could send wrong signals to other team members but I asked, "What more right a signal can people get?". On firing him we had money to afford hiring 4 junior testers for 1/5th of what he was paid and got more than what he was delivering. That's how I reduced the cost of the product.

There might be a lot of ways to solve a problem and there might be a lot more ways to not solve them. Unfortunately the ways to not solve a problem appear like the ways to solve problem. Humans are stuck!

If working on reducing, reusing and recycling test cases aren't working, you might want to reduce your intention of reducing, reusing and recycling /and/ think of reusing those ideas in a different context /or /recycle those ideas at a later date when you think the context has changed to suit it.

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Tester Tested! by Pradeep Soundararajan is licensed under Creative Commons. You must owe credits to Pradeep Soundararajan when you copy paste anything from here by mentioning the name and proper linking to the post. You are not allowed to edit any of the post without permission. For permissions, write to pradeep.srajan@gmail.com